


Adventures of Hawke & Company:  The Arena

by codenamecynic



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Action/Adventure, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Side Quests
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 10:28:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1979421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codenamecynic/pseuds/codenamecynic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written as an imagined side quest during Act 1, Hawke and friends are engaged to root out corruption in Kirkwall's underground fighting ring.  Hilarity and wild antics ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> SO! I thought I should preface this by saying that The Arena was one of the very first Dragon Age fanfictions I ever wrote. Actually, I think it was the second ever, after I burned the first one for being a travesty and a horror too terrible to see the light of day. I think this is also the only fic that hasn't migrated over from FF.net, so there's that. Anyway, if you've read that version you'll see I made some small edits (like Isabela's name being spelled wrong in the original version, WHAT?!), though they do not include fixing whatever crazy thing made me include Sebastian in a story that is clearly Act 1. Forgive me and my newbiness, and hopefully you also think this story is funny. If you've been reading me for a while, feel free to laugh at the way I was clearly afraid to write smut (I got over that. Clearly). Thanks guys!

“Okay, so I have good news and bad news.”

“That figures.  Give me the bad news.”

“You may not like it.”

“Like what?”

“The good news.”

“Oh.  Do I need to be drunk for this?”

“Couldn’t hurt.”

When it came to Varric, Hawke knew better than to ask, trusting that all would be explained in time, likely with fanfare and pomp.  Her dwarf companion was, after all, a storyteller first and a swindler, liar and cheater second.  His words. 

She actually found the dwarf rather compellingly trustable, despite his tendency to wax poetic (and completely false) about their accomplishments in an attempt to embellish their reputations.  Still, she had not starved for coin since he had taken Bethany and herself under his proverbial wing in the Hightown marketplace that day – was it a year ago?  More?  Less?

They had reached a comfortable routine since then.  Varric maintained quarters at the Hanged Man, and Hawke would find herself there in the evenings, parked in a comfortable chair with her boots on the table and him accusing her of getting nug shit on his papers.  Couple that with as much cheap ale as she could drink, and it made for a less than miserable existence.  Certainly more pleasant than the small attempt at a home she tried to make with Bethany, their mother Leandra, and their erstwhile uncle Gamlen.  You could scrub the dirt out of Lowtown, but you could never get rid of the smell.

She was handed a pint and was content to sip at it silently as he rustled about his books, wrapping up this project or another.  His efficiency was incredible; he had a good head for remembering numbers – and the number of favors owed to him.  She owed him too, she suspected, for trying to get her in with his brother Bartrand.  It had come to feel less like an obligation the more time went on, however; the more small adventures they undertook while chasing the coin to buy their way into the Deep Roads expedition, the more frequently they saved each other’s skins, the more their friendship had blossomed.

Not blossomed, exactly.  She wouldn’t use that word out loud, because it sounded dirty enough in her head.  She could just picture Isabella lifting an eyebrow, a know-it-all smirk on her lips.  _Hawke and Varric,_ she’d purr out, painting a picture for anyone listening with just those few words.  _How… novel and adventurous.  You know, I had a dwarf once, way back when, while I was visiting…_   And then Hawke would have to kill her.

But it wasn’t like that.  They’d talked about it once, both of them heavy in their cups.  She’d congratulated him on being the best man she never wanted to sleep with, and he’d informed her with false regret that Bianca was, and would remain, the only woman for him. 

“Alright, spill.”  She said finally, arching a brow at the dwarf who had by then settled back in his chair with a mug of his own.  “The suspense is killing me.”

“I may have a job for us.”

“This, I’m assuming, is the good news.”

Varric sighed.  “Trouble is, it’s dangerous.  Alright, a different kind of dangerous,” he amended when Hawke looked pointedly unimpressed.  “It may or may not have to do with fighting bare-chested bad men in a circle to the tune of a roaring crowd.”

The sardonic lift of her eyebrow did not change as she considered him, though she had to admit her interest was somewhat piqued.  It did sound different than their other jobs, indeed.  Go here, run back there, stab this guy, go get my money… often it felt like they were glorified errand runners for the rich and the devious.

“Fighting is the right ‘f’ word, isn’t it?  This isn’t some weird, freaky Kirkwall thing that I haven’t heard about.”

Varric rolled his eyes and had the grace to look at least somewhat disgusted.  “If it were the other kind of ‘f’, I’d have Isabella in here, and not you.”

Hawke laughed and took a long swig of her drink, the bitter taste helping to cleanse at least that image from her mind.  “Fair enough.  What’s the story then?”

“It’s sort of a bastardized version of the Proving in Orzammar.  The Carta started it here, sort of picked up the tradition to help them resolve issues amongst themselves.  It got popular, though, and so they opened it up to more than just dwarves.  It’s not meant to be deadly, strictly, but it sure as hell is bloody.  People die in there all the time.  Which is probably why it makes for such good entertainment.”

“Dwarves do love coin.”

“That we do.”  Varric set down his mug on the table and lifted a hand to rub at his stubbled chin.  “And we also like to hit each other with things.  Apparently it was a win-win situation.  For the Carta at least.”

Hawke watched him over the rim of her mug.  Now would be about the time he’d come clean with her about whatever it was that was bothering him about this job.  It was odd actually, especially given that they’d fought everything from bandits to raiders to slavers to the occasional pack of wild dogs.  They’d been tricked and ambushed more than once, dragged up and down the Wounded Coast, and half up Sundermount and back.  So far this just sounded like a handful of desperate men, sweating and beating each other with their fists for the entertainment of a crowd.  Oddly compelling.

“So what’s the job?”

“Fellow named Grayzor runs the show.  Apparently he wants to honest it up for a change, and he thinks that the current Arena champion and his… handler, for lack of a better word, are cheating with magic.  I know, I looked into it a little further,” he nodded at the incredulous look on Hawke’s face.  “Turns out he brought in a ringer that didn’t so much ring as was rung.”

“Lost some money, did he.  Well, that certainly makes more sense than that other thing.  Honesty.”

Varric chuckled his agreement.

“So, what’s the plan then?  Back alley maneuvers, remove the competition?  Possibly take out a dangerous apostate?”  Hawke grinned.  “You know how I love blood-mage Tuesdays.”

“Don’t let Anders hear you say that.”

A twinge of unease fluttered in her stomach at the mention of Anders and magic.  You couldn’t say the word with him in the room without involuntarily starting some conversation about the evils of templars and the plight of Circle mages.  It wasn’t that she didn’t care about either of those things, she did, honestly, but his constant fervency could be off-putting and Maker, she was just tired of talking about it.  She made an unladylike noise to cover her discomfort, halfway between a grunt and a snort.  “Merrill either.  Anders will get huffy, but Merrill will just look at me like I kicked her dog.”

“Merrill has a dog?”

“Maker, let’s hope not.”

They both had a good laugh then, and it helped to clear the air in the room.  Anders and Justice were something that they talked about only rarely, usually when Hawke was frustrated to the point of tearing out her hair and given to pacing, ranting as she did about his politics and his inability to get along, sometimes with anyone.  Even still, Varric didn’t need to be told that it was something that bothered her and weighed heavy on her mind.  Tactfully, he steered the conversation back to the topic at hand.

“’Fraid not, about the back alley maneuvers at least.  Grayzor wants it done publicly.”  Varric paused.  “In the ring.”

Surprised, Hawke sat up a little straighter in her chair, her feet coming down to rest properly on the floor again.  “He just wants this man ousted then?  Not killed?  Maker, that’s a first.”

“Not killed _necessarily_ , but it’s business.” Varric amended.  “He also wants us to find out how the fellow and his friend are cheating.”

“Charming.  I do think I see where this is going, however.  Someone will need to get in the ring with this man, knock him out of the competition so to speak.”  When Varric didn’t disagree, the look of incredulity returned to her features and she lifted both shoulders in a confused shrug.  “So I beat someone into submission for the raucous amusement of a crowd, so what?  Doesn’t sound so hard.”

Varric gave her a hard look, tilting his head to one side and giving Hawke the impression that she had just said something foolish.  “As much as I admire your confidence Marian, trust me, you don’t know about the Arena.”

Her blue eyes narrowed instinctively when he used her first name.  It seemed as though no one called her that anymore apart from her family, and even still it was foreign enough to sound like a scolding.  “Well tell me then, master dwarf, so I will languish in ignorance no longer.”

He pointedly ignored the sarcasm.  “They do it tournament style, winners move on to the next round.  So that means you have to beat _a lot_ of people into submission for the amusement of a crowd.  But to even qualify, you have to make it through what they call the Gauntlet.”

 “Which is?”

“The amateur league, honestly.”  He cracked a smile.  “Bunch of desperate folks trying to push their way into the lineup.  Not to say that it isn’t dangerous - you know how much trouble your average Darktown cutthroat can be – but that part I’m not worried about.  It’s the rest of it.  There are some real crazies in the Arena circuit, and they stay in until they get dead.  Been looking into that champion they got too, Garner.”  Varric’s eyes hardened, hinting the disapproval that he would not articulate with words.  “A real son of a bitch, that one.  Likes to hurt people.”

“And the combat is…?”

“Hand to hand, no weapons, no magic, and no other rules.”

At that Hawke gave a low whistle, staring across the room thoughtfully.  With a pair of blades she liked to believe she was a match for anyone, but with bare fists… hmph.  Well, it was a good thing she was fast.

“I see you take my meaning.”

Hawke nodded, but slowly grinned, the expression wolfish and spelling of trouble to come.  “But the coin’s good?”

“The coin is almost too good to pass up, which is why we’re even having this conversation.  I don’t send you into danger just for fun.  Always.  Most of the time.  Okay,” he admitted, laughing as Hawke made to kick him under the table.  “Ever.  But we’re close, this could help us out.”

“Can this work?”

“Don’t see why not.”  He was scratching at his chin again, the gesture different than before.  “The way I see it, we’ll put your name in for the Gauntlet and watch where it goes from there.  There’s no magic in the arena, but that crazy mage is good for something.  At least you’ll have someone to heal you every night, no rules against that.  Plus, with all the extra mage-power we have around these days, we might be able to figure out what sort of tricks Garner and his friend are playing before you ever have to fight him.”  Varric shrugged.  “Might give you an edge, if not remove the problem completely.  For all we know, he’s a cleverly disguised nug.”

Hawke laughed.  “It’s settled then, I’ll do it.”

_“No you will not!”_

The sudden growling voice at the door had both Hawke and Varric starting in their seats, Hawke immediately taking it upon herself to upend her half-drained mug down the front of her armor.  Not a badge of pride for either rogue, to be sure.  Still, Fenris had an uncanny way about him that no one had quite gotten used to, long as it had been.  He was usually so quiet – but he wasn’t quiet now.

“Shit, Fenris, what the -”

“This plan is suicidal, and you are stupid if that escapes your notice.”  The white-haired elf seemed to shimmer slightly as he turned on Varric, who had the presence of mind to at least close his mouth - unlike Hawke, who was sitting shell-shocked and dripping in beer with the empty mug still in her hand.  “And you, that you would even suggest this to her.  You have no better sense than she does to entertain this foolishness. I will not allow this.”

“All due respect friend, but it isn’t really up to you.”

Fenris made a sound somewhere between a sneer and a snarl, his lip curling derisively as he glared at them both.  As sudden as he had come, he turned on his heel and swept out the door.  _“We’ll see if it isn’t.”_

There was a long moment of silence, interrupted only by the softly crackling flames in the hearth and the steady _drip drip drip_ of ale off the scales of her armor and into the carpet.

Varric let out a breath.  “That man has only one setting.”

“Volatile?”

“Not the word I would have chosen.”

The reek of cheap beer was almost overwhelming and Hawke could not help but look down at her sodden torso with a mixture of annoyance and regret.  After another long moment full of apparently heavy contemplation, she set the empty mug down on the table with a click.  “I should probably go deal with him.”  Her upper lip curled in disgust as she stood, feeling cold beer leak into her boot.

“Yell first, or just stab?”


	2. Chapter 2

She was infuriating, she and that damned dwarf.  If they had started out with a single bit of good sense to share between them, they were slowly killing it off with drink and stupid plots.

“Foolish.”

Frustrated, Fenris slammed his fist against the wall of a crumbling building, the sharp bevels of his gauntlets sheering off pieces of eroded stone and spraying the packed dirt street.  The night was blessedly empty as he stalked angrily back to the ruined mansion in Hightown.  There was no one he wanted to see.  His legs moved stiffly as he paced, his armor hot and stifling, feeling constricting at his throat and around his chest.  Angrily he yanked at its collar.

She was an idiot. 

He was… what.

Ruining things, that’s what.  The realization made his eyes squeeze shut, made his stomach clutch.  He had barged into a private conversation, insulted her, and proceeded to give her an order.  _Him_ giving _her_ an order, like he had any right to do so.  Was he not just another stray invited to eat at her table and follow along at her heels?

No, that wasn’t fair.  Hawke had been nothing but kind to him, especially considering that their acquaintance had been premised on his initial deception.  He himself had risked her life; that he had followed her willingly into danger ever since did not make him less of a hypocrite.  Still, she had offered him a place, treated him fairly, rarely asking of him things he was not wont to do.  Even if the situation demanded, she always made it clear that it was his choice.

As if he had one when she looked at him the way she did, with clear blue eyes framed with those long, dark lashes.  There was a small crinkle that appeared between her brows when she was being earnest; he had seen her lie, boldly, with a clear countenance.  Just not to him.  He didn’t think she had ever lied to him, even if she had made it plain that there were things she would rather not discuss.

He probably should apologize.

_He’d just wanted to keep her safe._

A growl of frustration alarmed a passerby as he neared the Hightown square that housed Danarius’ mansion, and he glared, causing the hapless man to move to the other side of the street.  _Wonderful_.  He could almost hear the voice of that damn _mage_ floating disembodied in his head, calling him mongrel.  Dog.  Monster.  Fenris grit his teeth so hard it made his jaw ache, hands clenching tightly to fists, the effort grinding the interlocking metal pieces of his gauntlets together.

The house was dark and empty, as usual.  Fenris stalked through it as he always did, checking, making sure, this time bitterly disappointed that the ransacked mansion was deserted.  Climbing the stairs to what had become his living quarters, his hands struck out, knocking things from shelves without really seeing them, adding broken items to the rubble that littered the floors.  He lifted a lamp, hefted its weight, admired it, and then threw it at all wall where it smashed into pieces.

**

The lamp dissolved against the wall near her face.

“Fenris.”

He hated the way her lips shaped his name, the soft sighing way it was almost a question.  He took the word, turning it over in his mind, examining it for the accusation he expected it to hold, and found only compassion, and the slightest threads of wounded bafflement.  Shame rose to choke him and he turned his back to her, feeling a guilty flush rise from his throat and ascend to the roots of his hair.  “Get out.”

“Don’t you think I deserve an explanation?” 

His response stung her; he could hear it in the whip crack of her voice.  Good.  His lips twisted into a smile that contained nothing but self-contempt.  “Do you think I wish to waste my breath?  You will not listen to me.”  He turned to face her then, lyrium-banded arms firmly crossed over his chest, feet apart and planted.  He had intended to stare at her impassively, a look one might give a child behaving badly, but he could feel himself glowering.  Hawke sighed audibly, pushing a hand through her hair, irritably removing the few stray locks that petulantly insisted on falling into her face. 

How often he had to resist the urge to do the very same thing, to open up that lyrium-blue gaze to him, to brush the callused pads of his fingertips over her smooth skin, to trace the outline of the delicate bones beneath her flesh.  To find out what she felt like – if it would be as he imagined.  He bit down on that thought, chewed it up, swallowed it, vaguely aware that his hands had clenched at his sides, the metal gauntlets making that grinding noise again.  He would not dare to touch her, could not bear to, not when his hands itched to close around her white, slender throat and choke the stubbornness from her.

“I am listening to you.  Trying to.”  Her voice softened, soothed.  She was trying to calm him, put him at ease, lull him like he was some sleeping bear she had roused by accident.  He knew what she was doing, and it rankled.  Even after all of this time, she still thought his wild moods were a blister she could simply smooth balm over to make disappear.  “I want to understand.”

He was being unjust; the quick twist of guilt in his gut reminded him of it.  Again.  “We have such things in the Imperium.  A place where the Magisters send their useless slaves, and those too wild to control.  To die for the entertainment of others, that is not a fate worth fighting for.  I do not wish to see you marred by it.”

Magisters.  Slaves.  He spat the words as though they were venom, tiny drops of poison rolling off his tongue.  It always came back to that with him, like Anders and the Circle or Isabella with that damned relic.  The little obsessions that ruined them all.

“I’m not going to die, Fenris.  It’s just a job.”  Unsettled now that the intense green of his gaze was upon her again, Hawke turned to the side, paced a few steps, turned back.  “How long have we fought side by side?  You can trust me to defend _you_ in battle, but not myself?”  Her tone turned waspish with insult, the words sounding almost bitter.  _Carver._  “Contrary to whatever you may think, I did manage to take care of myself before you came along.  I didn’t _ask_ for you to-”

Wild dog indeed.  His temper flared and snapped his control clean in two.  He rushed her, his cold gauntleted hand closed around her arm and yanked her around, forcing her to bend face down over a table shoved to the corner of the room, pressing her with the weight of his armored body.  She struggled belatedly, wriggling in his grasp, and managed to land a hard elbow in his belly before he unceremoniously flipped her over to face upward. 

His hands banded about her wrists, the metal cutting into her skin.  He gripped her hard enough that he almost felt her bruise, felt the grind of bone and joint beneath the flesh.  Snarling, he kicked her feet apart before she could think to use her knees against him and moved in closer, his slim hips pinning her flat against the table.

He had never handled her this way.  For the most part they did not touch, not even small familial gestures passed between them.  He always seemed to require a safe buffer of distance, which she respected, careful not to push the limits of his comfort lest he be driven away completely.  To have him so hard against her, so fully, so suddenly, so without warning, it choked a gasp from her lips even before he curled a hand around her throat.

Fenris towered over her, stretching her body upward with the hand that curved like steel manacles around both of her wrists, forcing an arch in her back, the hand about her neck taking hard hold of her jaw and jerking her head up to look into his face. Close, he was so close, close enough to inhale the deep scent of him, even over the bitter smell of the beer that stained her clothing.  His body flickered blue with power, lightning tracing along the lines in his skin.  Fear smashed into her like a fist followed by a flood of hot desire.

He did not see how her eyes unfocused or how her lips parted tremulously as she moistened them nervously with her tongue.  Instead he reveled in her helplessness, his capture of her, the power over her he held.  He could tear her apart.  It would only be too easy.

“Do you see now?” He snarled down at her, his hand closing around her throat again, using it to give her head a little shake.  “Does this explanation suffice?  I cannot protect you if you chose to fight alone.  You cannot even protect yourself from _me.”_ His last words to her came out in a hiss of breath.  “ _Festis bei umo canavarum.”  You will be the death of me._   “And yourself,” he added quietly, releasing her at long last and turning away.

“Just go, Hawke.”

When he looked again, she was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

“I need you.”

Anders stared at her from across a table laden with potions.

“Not like that.  I just wanted to take advantage of your skills.”

Looking increasingly more amused, Anders straightened, folding his arms across his chest.  Both golden eyebrows were raised in a pleasant expression, merely waiting for Hawke to stumble through whatever she had barged into his clinic to say.  Somewhere in the background, Isabela snickered.

Hawke paused, narrowed her eyes, opened her mouth as though she’d try again, and then stopped, her lips shaping themselves into a scowl that did not quite achieve intimidating.  “I hate you both.”  Looking pointedly at Anders, she sat down on an empty cot and tucked her legs beneath her, the pile of clean linens she’d brought him held forgotten in her lap.  “I need a favor with something that does _not_ include my smallclothes.”

Isabela exploded into laughter.

Realizing belatedly what she’d said, Hawke could only sigh and lift one hand to rub at her temples, tugging at the lock of short-cropped hair that tended to fall forward over her eyes.  “Get out of here, pirate wench, and go steal some money from somebody’s grandmother.  Obviously that story you told me on the way here has made it impossible for my brain to function.”

“Oh, but I would so hate to miss-”

“And take the dog.  He’s judging me.”

Still laughing, Isabela complied, her hips waggling suggestively as she strolled out into the murkiness of Darktown, Hawke’s mabari trailing obediently after her.  _“Is your mommy sexually frustrated?  Yes she is!  Oh yes she is!”_

Waiting for Isabela’s voice to fade down the darkened passageway, Hawke dug the heels of her hands into her eyes.  “Hate.  Her.  So.  Much.”

Anders laughed, his voice low and pleasant, the sound oddly familiar and comforting.  “I’m afraid what you have is impossible for me to cure.”  He paused, significantly, casting her a long glance over his shoulder.  “With magic, anyway.”

“Don’t you start in on me, too.  I find myself feeling horribly put out.  Shut up,” she cautioned as she saw the faint lines at the corner of his eyes crinkle with the beginnings of a grin.  “Don’t try to turn that into something suggestive, or Maker help me I’ll dedicate myself to the Chantry this instant and leave you all to fend for yourselves.”

“As spicy a story as Varric might spin out of that, I find I vastly prefer you as you are.”  There was a pause, and she just shook her head, waiting for the inevitable.  “Though the notion of Andraste as a voyeur is terribly intriguing…”

Hawke had the grace to look scandalized, and then, relenting, dissolved into a peal of laughter.  “You’re blasphemous and terrible, but I do love you for it.”  She didn’t notice the pause in his clearing items from the table, the small tinge of pink that flushed his cheeks.  By the time she wiped her eyes and looked up, it was gone.  “Strangely enough, I did not come here to discuss my underpants.  I really was going to ask you for a favor.”

“For you, my lady Hawke, anything.”

Still, when she told him of Varric’s plan, his features had traded the fine line of crow’s-feet at the edges of his eyes for a furrow in his brow.

“Are you sure this is wise?  I’ve seen some of those fellows after a bout.  Some of my few paying customers, actually.”  He took the linens she was still holding in her lap and put them away, coming to sit down next to her.  “Varric wasn’t kidding, it can get ugly very quickly.  Obviously if you need me, I’m yours.  I’d just hate to see your face get less pretty.”

_If you need me, I’m yours._

She felt warm suddenly.  The words, uttered innocently enough, gave her a small tingle in her belly.  _Damn you and your stories, Isabela._ Masking her own less than innocent thoughts with an impish grin, she reached over and patted his knee, grateful that she could use such small affections with him.  Her catastrophic argument with Fenris had strained her, in so many different ways.  “Well, I’ll just put you down as a-”

“Hawke, what is this?”  Anders reached for the hand patting his knee.  Strong fingers explored her wrist and the back of her hand where her leather gauntlet did not cover and she held her breath, the skin there more tender than she’d realized.

Not wanting to ruin the good spirits he had been in when she arrived, and wanting to explain the circumstances of her injury even less, she deadpanned.  “That’s a bruise, Anders.”

“When did you get this?”

“When have you known me not to have them?”

Gently she tried to tug her hand away and his warm caramel eyes narrowed, his grip on her fingers tightening imperceptibly.  A small sigh of defeat made her shoulders slump just a fraction, and she forbore to sit patiently still as his deft healer’s fingers unlaced the leather that protected her forearm and slipped it away.

It was sort of ugly she admitted, looking down at the exposed skin of her wrist as he poked and prodded at it with expert fingertips.  The flesh was raw in places and abraded in others, the whole mess being a sort of purple-brown color that stood out starkly against her pale skin.  Hawke held her breath as Anders slowly rolled up her sleeve, revealing another dark bruise that had blossomed on her elbow.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not really.”  It didn’t.  Not at the moment.

The suspicious look had not left his eyes as he sat back, really looking at her for the first time since she had come into his clinic that morning.  His gaze swept her face, picking out small spots of color along the line of her jaw, longer oblong marks on her throat.  Not as dark, certainly, but there nonetheless.  When his gaze met hers again finally, he wasn’t sure what he saw there beyond the carefully neutral arrangement of her features.  He knew he could ask again, but she wasn’t going to tell him.  _Stubborn._

“You must bruise like a peach.”

“I heal quick, at least.”

Anders scoffed, letting his eyes drift back down to her wrist, still cradled in his hands.  She could feel the slow, gentle tingle of his magic at work, watching as the discolored skin slowly knit itself back together, the dark marks fading.  “Well, I’ll patch you up, I suppose.  It wouldn’t do for our fearless leader to show up looking like she’s already lost a brawl.”

**

Isabela was coming back, the sound of her voice singing some bawdy sailor’s tune alerted Fenris to her presence, giving him time to press himself into a dark corner.  Once she was out of sight, he left.

He should have known that coming to the clinic would be a misstep.  Mistakenly he had thought to gain Anders’ support in voting down this prospective job of Hawke’s.  Anyone could see that that damned mage had designs on her, no matter how Hawke dismissed the notion when teased or questioned.  Fenris thought he at least could be counted upon to help prevent her throwing herself headlong into being maimed or killed in this foolish Arena, but once again it seemed as though he and the apostate were fated to disagree.

That he stayed, watching from the shadows as he healed her, was just to torture himself.  He _hated_ that Anders behaved so overtly familiar with Hawke, just as he despised her indifference toward the very blatant danger the abomination presented.

And that Anders could be the one to heal her hurts when he himself seemed only fit to cause them was the height of injustice.


	4. Chapter 4

Varric arranged Hawke’s entry into the Gauntlet, and in the days between she practiced. 

With the help of Lirene, a fellow Ferelden and one of Anders’ contacts, she found space in an empty courtyard where she could rehearse her strategies undisturbed.  Often with Bethany, Merrill or Varric in attendance, she worked as they chattered, practicing knuckle, palm and elbow strikes she had not much occasion to use when in combat with her knives.  It felt strange to move without her armor and her weapons were always close at hand, but there was a sort of liberation, a freedom that came along with the lack in restrictions.

She was fast and she knew it.  That would be her counterpoint to the sheer brute strength she was likely to encounter. 

Her friends would trickle in from time to time to check on her progress, try her in a bout, offer words of advice, or simply to gossip with the others about trivial things.

**

“Now, I know you’re a smart girl and all, but you can’t be afraid to do these things.  If you get cornered, give ‘em a mighty kick in the balls.”

Varric groaned, “Isabela…”

“Or scratch out his eyes.  Can’t hit you if he can’t see!”

“Isabela!”

“Stomp on his fingers!  Throw dust in his face!”

Hawke stopped for a moment, wiping sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand.  “Isn’t that sort of dirty?”

“Isn’t that sort of the point?”

**

“It’s very pretty, what you’re doing.  It looks sort of like dancing, doesn’t it?  I guess, only a bit less fun.  Like mean dancing, where someone gets their foot stepped on, only… well, I guess it’s sort of worse than that, isn’t it?  Like an eyeball or something.”

Merrill’s idea of hand to hand combat left something to be desired.

**

“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that this is a terrible idea.”

“You don’t have to, dear Aveline, but I’m sure you’re going to anyway.”

“Damn right.  This is a terrible idea.”

“But you’ll be there?”

The guardswoman snorted.  “Not in uniform.”

**

“Maybe there will be Qunari.  I would pay to see you take down a Qunari with just your fists.”

“You may have to pay me to try.  Are you actually _trying_ to kill me, Varric?”

“Of course not.  It would just make for a hell of a story.”

**

She didn’t see Fenris until the last day, nearly at sundown.  Even with his brilliant white hair, he had a way of melting out of the shadows, ghostlike, that made her envious.  She didn’t see him standing with his back to the wall until she had finished, turning to splash her face with water and gather her things.

He was not sure how to start this conversation.  “You are surprisingly good at that.”

Her back turned to him she paused, blinked, and shook her head, hearing both the compliment and the insult.  “Glad you approve.”

“I don’t.”

Irritation colored her voice.  “Then why are you here?”

There was a long pause, as if he didn’t know either.

“Will you fight me?”

It was as though she could imagine those words being spoken elsewhere, in a very different setting, one that hinted at light from a flickering fireplace and a cold stone wall against her back.  Unbidden, her wrists ached and that treacherous combination of fear and anticipation made her straighten, stiffening her spine.  “No.”

“Why?”

Because the idea of taking her fists to him filled her with cold dread?  She would not be like others who had hurt him before, but she could not bring herself to say that.  That would infuriate him.  “Because I don’t want to.”

Her hands were slow in packing her things, very careful, very deliberate.  He was closer now.  She could feel him right behind her, like a pillar of fire.

His voice was soft, dark.  “I could make you.”

Her chest constricted, feeling as though there was a fist clutched around her heart.  Ironic.  She turned to face him slowly, her chin tipped up at its stubborn angle, and brought her eyes to his.  A long, silent moment stretched between them as they both just looked.  Watched and waited, as though each expected the other to strike at the least provocation.

Fenris broke first.

“I… ah.  I am making a mess of this.  It was my intention to apologize.”

She both hated and loved the way he seemed to fold in on himself at the admission of any wrongdoing, as though he were melting.  It was gratifying to know that he would come to reason eventually, no matter which way his mood happened to swing, but Maker, the flash of vulnerability and confusion on his face made her heart ache _._  

“That night…”  He stopped as though hoping she would help him, which she did not.  “It was only my intention to scare you, I did not mean to-”

“Send me home bloody and bruised?”  Her blue eyes were intense, challenging almost, and then relenting.  “It’s alright, it was not wholly unenjoyable.”

He bristled.  “Then you missed the point.”

“Did I?”

Fenris found he had nothing to say.

Hawke let it go, suddenly tired beyond measure.  “I would like to see you there tomorrow, if you so choose.  I would feel better if Merrill and Bethany were not left to themselves in the crowd.”

“A guard-dog for your mages.”

“For my _sister_ ,” the words came sharply.  “Because you are capable and vigilant, and I trust you.” 

Fenris blinked and stood there as though rooted, watching her warily, robbed for the second time of a suitable response.  She spoke of trust?  Even after…? His mind searched frantically for some other meaning her bald statement might have held, able to think of nothing. 

 _It was not wholly unenjoyable._  

The urge to retreat was overpowering.  He had to remove himself, take himself away from this tense seclusion with her, or he would do something foolish.  He turned and made to leave, and she let him go.  He could feel her eyes on his back as he went, and when he looked over his shoulder she was still standing in the courtyard, watching him.  He turned away.

“I will be there.”

He told himself he did not care if she heard him.


	5. Chapter 5

The Gauntlet turned out to be a joke.

Hawke had not known quite what to expect it to be.  Being pushed with five other opponents into a ring of loosely nailed together boards filled with dirty sawdust and being ordered to duke it out was not a possibility she had considered.

There seemed to be some kind of a grudge match going on between the other fighters, and for the first few minutes of the brawl she was all but disregarded, merely shoving people back into the general fray when they were thrown against her.  It was elimination by knock-out and she had little chance to get a punch in edgewise, the others doing such a good job of laying into one another that it was barely necessary. 

Determined not to be completely ignored, her grand act of prowess for the evening was to stick her arm out sideways for someone to run into, effectively clothes-lining a baffled-looking young man into unconsciousness before the bell sounded the end of the fight, herself and two others left standing.  Varric had been the only one of her companions to come with her, acting as her representative, and as she was led out of the ring she found his eyes and shrugged.

“That wasn’t exactly the epic battle I had in mind,” the dwarf muttered as they strolled together through the narrow alleyways of Lowtown, back to the Hanged Man.

“I’ve been in more danger while trimming my fingernails.”

He chuckled.  “Tomorrow should be a little more like you’re used to.  If I can ask a favor though, try and put on a good show.”

Hawke lifted an eyebrow as she looked down at him, amused.  “What, my beating of things is not both astonishing and hilarious?  Shall I juggle my knives between matches as well?”

Varric rolled his eyes.  “You just have a way of being terribly… efficient.  The Arena is entertainment.  Nobody pays to see a bunch of slobs knocked out with one punch.”

“Point taken.  I shall endeavor to be as spicy and full of flare as possible.”

The dwarf at her side could only shake his head.


	6. Chapter 6

The Arena took on a different life when it was full of people.  Hawke had not been in the stands the night before, only on the Arena floor, but from her vantage she had to appreciate that the space had been efficiently used.  The sawdust filled circle did not even occupy most of what seemed to have been once a small warehouse, much of the space being devoted to raised stands that inclined by levels.  That closest to the Arena was for standing room only, but benches and tables dotted the upper two tiers.  Liquor and gambling flowed freely, and there were plenty of dark corners to harbor clandestine meetings.  She would have to tell Merrill and Bethany to steer clear of those places. 

Maker, she could kill Isabela right now. 

Unable to be sure if Fenris would consent to aid her in the task she asked of him, she had mentioned it also to Isabela.  Clearly it had been a mistake, as the pirate seemed a little too excited when faced with the task. 

“Just leave it all to me,” she’d said.  “Everything will be fine,” she’d said.  And then she’d shown up with the pair of apostates in tow, dressed in her clothing and looking rather like something one would come across in the Blooming Rose.  It made Varric choke on his beer.  It made Hawke want to choke Isabela.  Fenris, who had appeared to Hawke’s surprise and relief, had the grace not to react with anything more than a more pronounced version of the frown he already wore.

Hawke’s clear annoyance seemed to have little effect on the elven mage, however, who bubbled on unhindered.  “Isn’t this fun!  Look at all these people!  My, some of their tattoos are…”  she lost a bit of her momentum as a particularly hairy and shirtless dwarf strolled by, the tattoo on his arm resembling something Isabela might doodle in the margins of a book.  “…descriptive.”  Undeterred, she beamed at Hawke, who had to take special pains not to grimace.  “Dressing up is so neat!  We’re inc… inco…”

“Incognito,” Bethany supplied helpfully, taking Merrill by the arm and steering her away.  “Look Merrill, they have popped corn!  What do you mean, you’ve never had popped corn?”

With Fenris stoically trailing after the two – Maker knew they never had a copper piece to split between them anyway – Hawke was finally free to arch an eyebrow at Isabela, the expression and her crossed arms clearly demanding an explanation.

“What!  It’s not like I could bring them here with their staves and in their robes.  It will be a lot less trouble this way, I promise you.”

“It better be, so help me…”

Isabela pouted, pinching Hawke’s hip suggestively, easier to do without the barrier of the other woman’s armor.  “Relax a little sweetcheeks, you’re starting to sound like Aveline.”

Hawke only sighed and sat down next to Varric, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees.  She wasn’t nervous, though part of her expected to be.  There was a definite tension in the air, especially given that the evening’s contestants were left to mingle with the rest of the crowd in absence of a back room big enough to house them.  She had already been looked over several times, stares varying from curiosity to outright hostility.  But the worst part was waiting.

“Are you ready for this?” 

“I’m spicy and full of flare.”

The dwarf just rolled his eyes.

**

Hawke was having trouble taking this seriously.  Her first opponent had been a drunken dwarf who could barely stand, the smell of his breath being the most (and only) lethal thing about him.  He wavered on his feet so heavily that Hawke was afraid that he would either vomit or pass out before the bell had even rung.

Beating him standing up hardly seemed fair. 

Baffled, Sebastian canted his head to one side, watching Hawke dodge and weave sloppily thrown punches while down on both knees on the Arena floor.  “Maker, what is she doing?”

It was Varric who answered him, the dwarf seeming to be having a very difficult time keeping a straight face. “Entertaining.”

**

“That was pathetic.”

Hawke sat in Varric’s rooms, once more in her accustomed seat with her boots up on the table while Anders worked healing magic on her knuckles, the bruises fading under the warmth and tingle of his touch. 

“No, that was hilarious.  On your knees even!  The way that dwarf staggered around, swinging at the air.  He must have seen four of you.  And that elf, with all the face paint…”  Isabela was staggering herself a bit, having clearly enjoyed herself at the Arena, and again at the Hanged Man.  She gestured vaguely with the mug in her hand, ale slopping over the side to splash Hawke’s mabari, who whined and licked his fur contemplatively.

“That ah… was not what I was expecting,” Varric admitted, drumming his fingers on the table.  “The crowd does love you though.”

“Spice and flare, my friend.  Spice and flare.”

Only Anders seemed to have nothing to add to the conversation, patiently waiting for Hawke to transfer her mug and give him the other hand, having finished with the first.  A small line pinched his forehead, leaving Hawke to wonder if he was merely tired, or annoyed. 

At least he wasn’t lecturing.  She’d already had it twice about her apparently unsporting behavior in the ring, once from Bethany and again from Aveline, who looked down her nose sternly and said, “That was _not_ very nice.”  Sebastian had merely shaken his head as he was wont to do and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder before leaving to join Fenris in returning Merrill to the alienage and walking Bethany back to Lowtown.  They were an odd pairing, the princeling-turned-Chantry-brother and the mercenary ex-slave.  She would not have predicted that they would get along, though it seemed that Fenris’ prejudice against mages did not extend to the Chantry that proposed to control them.  Sebastian would not go so far as to tell her the details of their conversations, but she did know they spoke regularly, apart from herself and their other companions.

“Please tell me we learned something useful at least.”

Varric shrugged.  “Disappointingly, no.  Garner and his apostate friend Mendel didn’t even show.  Apparently that’s not uncommon.  He’ll likely be there tomorrow, but he won’t fight until the end.”

“Well, that should give you plenty of time to watch him.”  Hawke looked considering, taking a sip of her ale.  “Of course, that means he’ll also be watching me.  It’ll give him a chance to study how I fight, which I don’t like if he’s really as nasty as you say.  But I don’t think it can be avoided.”

Anders’ grip on her wrist flexed tight of a sudden.  Hawke turned to look at him, making him flush and resume his ministrations.  “Sorry, it just makes me nervous.  I’ve heard a few things about both of those fellows.  They’re not exactly what I’d call model citizens.”

Finding his concern almost as endearing as his embarrassment, Hawke favored him with a sympathetic smile.  “Neither are we, exactly.”  Sensing that the mage was finished with his task, she stood up and stretched, rolling her shoulders to loosen them.  “Well, nothing to be done for it now.  Tomorrow’s a brand new day, full of brand new opportunities for getting punched in the face.  Let’s just hope it’s a little more of a challenge.”

**


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for rape-related banter and general unfortunate nastiness late in this chapter.

Varric had been spot on about Garner’s presence, though if he was watching her particularly, he gave no sign.  He sat back near the top tier of the audience and nursed a pint of ale, seeming almost bored.  Mendel on the other hand, a mage with stringy gray hair and robes far too flashy than she would have thought wise given the heavy presence of templars in Kirkwall, was constantly on the move.  He seemed to have reason to deal with just about everyone she recognized as even somewhat important in the city’s underworld.  They did not all seem to be pleased to see him, however, leaving Hawke with the impression of the man as a panderer to power, however legitimate.  Still, his clothes held the stink of blood magic, sparking a long and whispered conversation between Anders and Varric.

Hawke left them to it.  It was their job at this point, to plot and plan and figure out their approach.  It was up to her to keep her face from getting pounded unrecognizable and to keep them in the game. Her first bout had gone well, a fast-paced brawl with a man whose body gleamed with muscle in the flickering light, intricate tattooed script across his arms and shoulders giving him an almost feline appearance.  Theirs had been an intricate dance of skill, both beautiful to behold, and painful.  The rapid succession of blocks, strikes and counterstrikes had been dizzyingly fast, combatants circling each other like courting predatory beasts.  They gave ground, retook it, and forced one another back and forth across the bloodied sawdust floor as the crowd screamed its delight, whipped to frenzy. 

It had only ended when Hawke abruptly changed the rules of engagement, digging her fists into her adversary’s vest and delivering a brutal head butt that snapped her opponent’s head back, following it with the right hook punch that was beginning to take on some fame of its own.

That he approached her later with a cocky twist to his lips and admiration in his eyes did surprise her, though, not expecting to encounter a graceful loser here of all places.

Fenris watched as the tattooed figure leaned over her shoulder, his mouth perilously close to Hawke’s ear and shaping a suggestive grin as his lips moved.  Hawke turned her head to look at the man over her shoulder, their faces only inches apart.  He only saw her nod her head once in brief acknowledgement, curt almost, but her lips twisted into what was almost a predatory smirk, her eyes appraising. 

The fellow had recovered well it seemed, and Fenris could only imagine what he wanted.  As the man stepped away, Isabela’s giggled shriek of “Rematch!” summoned up a growl that curled from his belly, regretting his vantage because it both allowed him to watch her and prevented him from coming to her side.  His hands flexed unconsciously, wishing to crush something, and he forced himself to look away.

**

Hawke caught a handful of sawdust right in the face. 

She spun away blindly, cursing, trying to give herself time and space to clear her vision.  It didn’t work; her feet were swept out from beneath her suddenly, knocking her flat on her back and driving some of the air from her lungs.  She rolled to one side to avoid a heavy boot slamming down on top of her. 

_“Cheap shot!  Destroy that bastard!”  Isabela screamed from the stands, a flailing arm scattering white kernels of popped corn over Aveline and Sebastian.  Sebastian picked up a piece that had fallen into his lap and examined it curiously, about to put it in his mouth before Aveline slapped it out of his hand, shaking her head no._

Her temper flared like a torch touched to oil, pieces of sawdust flying as she tossed her head.  The crowd watched and roared its approval as the proverbial kid gloves of fair combat were slowly and deliberately removed.

He was a tall man with shaggy blond hair and a decidedly mean-spirited glint in his eye.  Fast too, but Hawke was faster.  The claws came out, her short fingernails tearing swaths of skin off his face and chest, hissing and spitting like one of Anders’ stray cats.  She spun him in circles, employing all her skill to dodge and weave, delivering sharp blows to the kidney region whenever she got behind him.  A lucky strike to her midsection that knocked her onto her back again earned a swift retaliation, a flatfooted kick from the ground directly into the groin that had every man in the crowd wincing and hissing in sympathy.  As he bent double, clutching himself, she lifted her leg again and brought boot to head.

It wasn’t a knock-out victory, but he obviously wasn’t getting up of his own will anytime soon.  When Hawke’s eyes found Isabela, shooting her a quick, feral looking grin, the pirate looked decidedly smug.

**

Varric was right; the audience did seem to love her, viewing her presence as a great upset.  At the end of the first night, money had begun to furiously change hands despite her comedic performance, earning her cheers and jeers alike from factions within the crowd.  Their energy was beginning to have a palpable effect on her, bringing out something fierce and ugly and a little too sure of itself.  She reveled in the power of her body, the stretch and burn of muscles being used as she blocked and parried, struck and tumbled.  The way she fought had always lent itself well to the acrobatic.  She employed the talent now, keeping her just out of arms’ reach in earnest fights and keeping it interesting during easy ones.

Still, Hawke’s luck had to run out eventually; when it did, it was usually spectacular.

Hawke squared off against a large bull of a man with a mangled face and a nose vastly crooked from being broken one time too many.  She shifted through tactics, employed different strategies, drawing on the advice of each of her friends as she sought to wear her opponent down.  She let him rush her, standing her ground until the last minute, spinning away just out of reach with quick skipping steps, coming around behind him to kick at his hamstrings or drive an elbow into his back.  When he miscalculated, throwing himself headlong into the arena wall as she pirouetted out of the way, she waited for him to right himself from the other side of the enclosure, winking and shimmying her shoulders at him when he recovered.

_“And you said dancing had nothing to do with it,” Merrill scoffed, nudging Aveline in the arm with her elbow._

_“She’s going to be impossible to live with after this, you know,” Sebastian pointed out.  “Assuming she doesn’t get herself beaten into a bloody pulp.”_

_Anders just put his head in his hands and groaned._

Only when she finally rolled to a stop after being literally kicked across the arena did it occur to her that repeatedly poking the proverbial bear with a stick may not have been the best plan she’d ever put into action.  She could feel a little stitch in her side from the sudden landing, rubbing it absently as she picked herself up off the floor.

The fight closed in on her then, and it took most of her concentration to avoid getting flattened.  It wasn’t so much that her opponent had an excess of skill, but rather of muscle.  She did land several punches on his midsection, ducking the heavy-handed blows he tried to deal her, but it had just about as much effect as hitting him with a pillow.  Plus, it made her hands smart.  The cloth she had wrapped around her knuckles was stained bright red; blood coating her forearms, most of it probably not his.  _Shit._   A blow glanced off her ribs and knocked her sprawling.

The ground shook next to her as she rolled out of the way, barely avoiding his foot coming down on top of her, and when he chased her to the wall of the enclosure and threw a punch his fist went through it right next to her head.  For a moment he was stuck, blessedly, his sleeve caught on the splinters, and she did the only thing she could think of, getting around behind him and leaping on his back. 

_All but the top of Bethany’s head was hidden beneath her shawl.  “I can’t watch this.”_

_Aveline’s brows drew together, leaning forward on her elbows.  “I don’t know whether to be worried or amused.”_

_“Don’t look at me,” Isabela said haughtily, pointedly looking over at Varric, who had taken a notepad out of his pocket and was currently scribbling madly.  “I’m not the one who mentioned bronto busting.”_

_Fenris threw up his hands in defeat and went to sit somewhere else._

Knees locking at his sides, one arm came around his neck and choked, braced by the other.  Freeing himself from the wall with a great tear of his shirt, he struggled to throw her off of him, reaching blindly to claw at her face and slamming her into the arena wall repeatedly, punishing her back.  She sunk her teeth into his shoulder in what she deemed to be completely righteous and legal self defense.  With no real recourse, Hawke hung on tighter, flexing her bicep and forearm until they both ached.  She needed him to pass out, and soon - before she threw up on him or he broke every bone in her spine.

Eventually he staggered, falling to one knee and then both.  He gave an immense shudder and reached, grabbing her by the back of her shirt and flinging her off of him in a great overhanded throw that took him down to all fours.  She cleared several feet of floor and bounced when she landed awkwardly, her arm trapped beneath her.  She heard something tear, a white hot wave of pain traveling from her shoulder to her fingertips.

_Somewhere above her the crowd went oooh._

Hawke could hear familiar voices yelling her name, shouting for her to get up, and she did, albeit slowly.  Her left arm hung limply at her side below the elbow, a quick touch with her right hand suggested it was good as useless.  She spit out a mouthful of blood, cussing under her breath, something nonsensical having to do with nugs, chicken and the Qun.  Eyes narrowed and feeling murderous, she staggered over to her opponent who was still down on hands and knees, gasping, and kicked him in the stomach as hard as she could.

_“At least it wasn’t in the balls this time.”_

_“Isabela!”_

_“What?  Just saying.”_

He was taking forever to go down, so she kicked him again.  Twice.  The crowd was screaming for her to finish him.  His head lolled, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth as she walked carefully around him.  Her bloody fingers laced into his hair, pulled his head up, and then dropped it, his skull meeting her knee with a resounding crack.  He topped over backward slowly, like a great tree being felled.

**

Anders and Aveline met her at the gate, and she was glad to have a two pairs of strong shoulders to lean against.  Her ribs hurt something fierce and there was nothing to be done about the arm except to tuck it up against her to avoid it being jostled by the crowd.  It wasn’t paining her quite as much as before, and she entertained the hope that it might not actually be broken, though with her luck it was more likely that the damn thing was going to fall off and need to be reattached with tacks and tanner’s glue.  It was fortunate that this was her last fight for the evening; her body felt less like a well oiled machine, and more like it might be successfully muggable by three year olds with broken dolls and pointy sticks.

“Guess I sort of deserved that.”  She grinned, trying to keep the mood light and take the worried edge off the faces of her companions.

Aveline rolled her eyes, unwinding the tattered cloth from around one of Hawke’s hands and using it to wipe some of the blood off her face.  “You’re amazing.  And an idiot.”

“True.  It’s part of my girlish charm.”

**

She was not expecting to be ambushed when she stepped outside the muggy Arena for some air.  Upon further consideration she was forced to admit that it was again not among the wisest of decisions she had made in the last week, trumped only by her agreeing to participate in this damned tournament to begin with.  Still, the Arena was choked with bodies, smelling of sweat and copper.  Her ribs ached, making it hard to breathe.

How she came to be pressed up against the dirty wall of the alley by what appeared to be a solid wall of muscle was just poor planning on her part, the thought occurring the second before bone-snapping impact.  He moved fast for such a big man, or maybe it was just her uncharacteristic lack of attention.  Either way, she was less than pleased with the little mousy squeak that escaped her throat when a hard hand grabbed hold of her arm and whipped her around, shoving her back against the cracked stone wall.  It took the air out of her, her ribs groaning in displeasure, and gave her assailant too much opportunity to get in close, pinning her ungently with a stomach and chest corded with muscle as well as a thick knee jammed between her thighs.

He was huge, and if he’d had a knife or the inclination to snap her neck, she’d have been dead.  She was able to breathe barely as it was, and her vision blurred hatefully for a long nauseating moment until the intense flare of pain in her ribs subsided and she could focus on her attacker.  He was a head taller than her and maybe twice as wide, the bulk of his body concentrated in his torso and shoulders, both striped by the jagged black weals of tattoos.  He had a shining bald head and an unpleasant looking mouth, hidden behind a short, stylized beard.

His smile was ugly.  “Hello, little whore.”

“Garner, I presume.”  That her voice was almost halfway to steady surprised even Hawke.  She knew being outrageously flippant in the face of danger was a bad habit she’d shared with Carver, but she was being slowly crushed to death and by all rights was allowed a modicum of panic.  Her mouth, evidently, worked of its own accord.  “I was wondering when you’d show up.  Thought I might have scared you off.”

“You talk too much.”

“And you obviously weren’t burdened with an overabundance of schooling.”

The behemoth growled, his chest giving her a little nudge into the wall that had her breath hissing through her teeth.  Hawke turned it into a low, terrifying laugh as he fisted his huge hand in her hair and yanked her head back, feeling herself go a little bit mad with the effort of not screaming.  “You can tell that damned dwarf that I know what he hired you to do.  You don’t have a chance.”  His voice pitched almost seductive, crooning.  “I’m going to enjoy making you bleed.”  She felt the press of something rigid against the top of her thigh, nausea roiling through her as she realized he was aroused.  _Unbelievable._

Instinctively she spit in his face and had a split second to regret it before his fist brought itself across her cheek in a solid backhand, filling her mouth with the taste of metal. 

“Bitch!  Give me one good reason I shouldn’t just snap your pretty little neck right here.”  He looked dangerously close to doing it too, the hand that had gripped one of her arms lifting to wrap around her throat.

“I’ll give you two.” 

The voice behind the solid wall of Garner’s body was made of gravel, steel and brittle shards of glass; a glowing blue fist burst through his chest, hovering an inch from Hawke’s nose.  “I will crush your heart within your chest before I tear it out of you.”  The hand receded, burying itself, and Garner stiffened, making a choked sound.  His hand tightened reflexively in Hawke’s hair, and she closed her eyes, wincing.  “I will also make sure it takes a long, long time for you to die.”

Fenris did not remove his hand from where it punctured through the other man’s chest until Garner had removed himself from Hawke, using it to guide the larger man into stepping to the side.  Disgusted and nearly overcome with the urge to make good on his threat regardless, he yanked his hand away and gave the man’s shoulder a rough shove, enough to topple the unbalanced giant forward a few steps and back toward the Arena.  His lips curled in a snarl, he interposed his body between the staggering man and Hawke. 

Hawke sagged against the wall, her uninjured arm going to clutch at her side.  Her relief at Fenris’ sudden arrival was so intense it threatened to push her over into blissful unconsciousness; that and the body-searing amount of pain involved while trying to breathe and remain upright at the same time.  Still, she couldn’t keep herself from grinning when her assailant recovered enough to turn around and fix her with a hate-filled glare.  “Catch you later, Garner.”

Fenris watched the giant stomp away, not taking his eyes from the man until the door to the Arena slammed behind him.  Lightning flickered along his skin and he trembled visibly, wanting so much to tear the bastard’s body limb from limb, wanting to drag his organs out of his screaming corpse one by one and present Hawke with his liver as a trophy.

She made a small, pained sound behind him and he turned to find her bracing herself against the wall awkwardly with the shoulder of her injured arm, the other still clutching her side as she tried to straighten up enough to walk.  When he looked, she gave him what she was hoping amounted to a grateful smile.  “Never been so glad to see anybody in my whole damn life.” 

He put that aside for the moment, resolving to pick it apart later, maybe even allow himself to enjoy it a little.  “He wants to kill you.”

“The feeling’s mutual.”

He caught her as she toppled in slow motion, spewing broken curses in Arcanum as he tried to gently press her against him, looping the arm she favored around his neck and lifting her off the ground, an arm at her back and beneath her legs.  Her head lolled limply against his chest, blood leaking from the corner of her lips to stain the neck of her shirt.  An icy terror banded his chest and he shouted hoarsely toward the door for Isabela, who for once answered promptly.

When she saw what he carried, her eyes went wide and full of alarm.  “Shit!  What- ”

“Hanged Man,” was all he could manage to bite out.  “Bring the healer.”


	8. Chapter 8

Fenris had prowled the hallway of the Hanged Man for what seemed like hours, pacing restlessly in front of her door. 

Varric had long since gone to sleep and Anders as well, Isabela graciously offering up the use of her bed to the exhausted mage.  It was unclear whether or not she meant to join him in it though Fenris doubted so, recalling the strain around the healer’s eyes, the way he slumped when at last he could do no more.

Hawke had been silent and still, safe behind a door left half open as though she knew that Fenris would be there.  He could have gone home, but the sound of her screaming echoed around in his mind, reverberating off of every other thought and drowning the possibility of sleep.  She’d tried valiantly not to, but when Anders had given her the leather strap to bite down on, used his power to pop her rib back into place and ease the pressure on her lung, she’d sounded like a wounded animal.  He had been the one to try and hold her to the bed as her hands death-gripped the covers beneath her and her legs thrashed with a will of their own.  Fenris had few memories of healing magic from the Magisters; he had forgotten that it was not always easy and painless, even when one had as much skill as he would begrudgingly acknowledge Anders possessed.

It had embarrassed her.  As soon as the worst was over, she spit the strap onto the floor and favored them with a string of long and brightly colored curses, trying to crack badly formed jokes to get them to laugh even as tears streamed down her temples and into her blood-streaked hair.  Stubborn, so stubborn. 

He still wanted to crush that bastard Garner’s heart.

“Fenris?”

Ah, but it almost hurt, the way her voice crawled across his skin.  Soft, like a whisper, like a caress.  He stopped in his pacing and obediently came to the door, filling the doorframe and casting his shadow across the floor.

“You can come in here.  If you like.”

Because his only other alternative was to return to pacing back and forth in the hallway he accepted the invitation, pulling up a chair to sit facing her at the bedside. 

It was strange to see her in bed - to be, in effect, in her bedroom.  He avoided visiting her at her home.  Her uncle eyed him suspiciously, and her mother was always so unbearably kind, pressing food on him and asking about his health.  His stammered, awkward responses did not seem adequate.

She sat up slowly, the movement careful and stiff, pulling a pillow behind her back for support.  He almost reached to help her, but curled his hands at his sides and let her do it for herself.  “Are you in pain?  I can fetch the mage.”

Hawke shook her head, a ghost of a smile on her too pale lips.  “Nothing a little rest won’t fix.”

A moment of wavering silence passed between them.  He stared at her, unsure of what to say.  She looked tired, the ghost of a bruise still marring one side of her face, eyes half lidded.  Hawke adjusted her injured arm, laying it over her stomach.  “I wanted to thank you for what you did in there.  It cannot have been easy.”

As so often was the case lately he could not think of an appropriate response, _you’re welcome_ coming to his mind too late.  “Why do you do it?”

She canted her head to one side, considering him. “Why thank you?”

“No.”  He shook his head, tendrils of white hair falling forward to obscure his eyes.  “Why do you speak with me?”

Her eyebrows raised, and she took a slow, deep breath to indulge her sore ribs, settling back against the wall.  “Is there a reason I should not?”  He was silent once more, and she gave a small shake of her head, not really expecting a response.  “I like you, Fenris.”

It was as though she had stroked his back, rubbing a velvet glove down his spine.  “My behavior toward you as of late has not…”

“It doesn’t matter.”  He would not speak the words, but his silence asked for him.  “Your life…”  She paused, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip as her eyes stared off into the space between them.  “The road you’ve traveled looks to be a hard one, whether or not you wish to speak of it.  It seems as though you could use a friend.”

It surprised him that he did not desire to say something cruel in response.  She looked fragile, sitting there with her bruised face and her arm wrapped in bandages.  He had not forgotten the shapes her lips made, uttering the words _I trust you_.  He would not forget the shape of this new word, _friend_.

“You should sleep, Hawke.  It is not over yet.”

Appearing somehow satisfied, she nodded and nestled herself carefully back down into the blankets.  His presence did not seem to bother her and soon her eyes closed again, her chest rising and falling gently with even breaths.  Fenris watched her for a time, unsure of how to begin sorting through the myriad of emotion constricting his chest.

Eventually he lay down on the floor between her bed and the door, his sword stretched out beside him.  When he woke hours later, well before dawn, Hawke was asleep on her side facing away from him, and one of her blankets was tangled around his legs, having been draped carefully over him during the night.

**

Anders had already been in to see her twice that morning, attending to the painful tenderness in her ribs and healing the torn muscles in her arm.  Fenris could smell the lyrium on his breath even across the room where he stood, leaning against the wall near the door.  It made his skin itch and reminded him too strongly once again that Anders was a mage, while at the same time forcing a grudging respect that the man would go to such lengths to make sure Hawke didn’t suffer any more than she had to.

Someone brought up a tub of hot water and a clean cloth, setting it on the floor for her should she want to bathe.  They’d washed the blood from her face last night as gently as they could, but the rest of her was filthy with sweat and sawdust. 

The look on her face was pitiful when she realized she couldn’t bend double, trying to pick up the washcloth from where it lay over the rim of the tub.  Her jaw set itself and she stubbornly tried again, gasping after a moment, a hand going to her side.  Her head dipped, unruly dark hair shifting forward to mask her eyes.  Eventually she looked up, her gaze flitting from Anders to Fenris, and back to Anders.  “Would you mind?” She sounded sort of strangled, unlike herself. “I would ask Bethany, normally, but I don’t want to upset her.  She’ll just tell mother, and then I…”

From the corner of his eye, Anders saw Fenris curl away from the wall and step out the door, disappearing down the hallway.  It was all but impossible to hide his grin, though he directed it at Hawke, and not at the space where Fenris used to be.  “Nothing I haven’t seen before, right?”

She didn’t blush, which disappointed him, just a little.  She did narrow her eyes though, and scrunch her nose just slightly, somewhere between smiling and glaring.  It was just as good.

Hawke was surprisingly reticent to be seen in just her smallclothes.  She had almost stopped him the night before when he repaired the worst of the damage to her ribs but relented without argument, knowing it was necessary.  She’d let him pull her shirt up over her bloodied breast band, but she’d refused to look him in the eye.  Then he’d started hurting her, and it didn’t matter.

There were times, like now, where being a healer had very tangible benefits.  Other times though, when his hands glowed blue with power and someone he cared about screamed beneath them, he wanted to kill himself.

Anders didn’t try and flirt with her which surprised Hawke a little, but at the same time put her at ease, able to trust him to doctor her hurts.  Mindful of her dislike of being exposed, he helped her off with her shirt only, leaving her breeches on as he gently ran the warm, wet cloth over her skin.  She was much paler clean, scrapes and bruises standing out starkly.  He healed them as he went.

The silence was thick between them as he worked up one arm and down the other, over her shoulders, the sleek muscle of her back, her ribcage, small waist and the flat planes of her stomach.  It felt like he was trespassing almost, this surely a job for a lover and not a broken down apostate with an angry spirit in his head.  That didn’t stop him from being possessive of the task.

He helped her sit up in her chair, one hand moving around her to gently press her back forward, straightening her spine.  Her arms lifted out of the way, moving to rest on his shoulders as his other hand moved to her ribs, palm flaring with blue light as he encouraged the lingering soreness to mend, the awful purple color fading slightly, the edges shrinking in toward the middle. 

Hawke looked down at him where he knelt on the floor near her feet.  He had dripped water all over his robes and she thought to say something until her eyes flickered to his face, seeing his brows drawn together in concentration.  She took a deep breath as the glow faded from his fingertips.  More air and less pain.  Good.  She bent forward, letting her head rest affectionately against his for a moment before pulling away, the smile evident in her voice.  “Guess that favor ended up including my smallclothes after all.  Isabela will be beside herself.”

Anders choked, and then tried to hide it with a laugh, the sound strained and nervous to his own ears.  He forced a careless smile as he looked up at her, even if he could feel the tops of his ears getting hot, thanks to their proximity.  “Well, luckily magic is good for some things.”  He took the opportunity to bathe her face, brushing tousled strands of hair away to reveal eyes that grinned, even if her lips didn’t move.  “You were fine.  Just a flesh wound.”

Hawke made a short, grumpy noise.  “Hurt like a bitch to be a flesh wound.”

Anders found he could laugh, the sound coming a little more freely.  “No fooling you.”  He put the cloth down and helped her on with a clean shirt – one of Varric’s which surprisingly still more or less fit, despite the difference in proportions. 

She stood and was able to undo the laces at the front of her breeches, removing them more or less on her own, he only helping her to steady herself as she stepped out of them.  Her legs were a good deal cleaner than her arms and torso, and less damaged as well, which was both good and bad.  He performed small healings, a soreness here, a bruise there, which left him ultimately with Hawke’s long, long legs, bare from toe to thigh.  He tried to concentrate on her imperfections, searching out the flaws on her skin.  It wasn’t helping.  His hand curved around her calf, his thumb thoughtfully stroking along one long, jagged scar that cut over the muscle from knee to ankle, the flesh there somehow whiter than the rest of her.  Above him, she sighed and it took everything he had to let his hand fall still, and not jerk it away guiltily like a little boy whose fingers itched to raid the cookie jar.  “Does it hurt?”

“No, it’s old.  From the time before.”  Lothering, she means.  He knows she does not speak of it.

Hawke smiled and leaned back in the chair, a little easier now.  “I wanted to say something to you, Anders.  Just in case something happens later and I forget.”

Unbidden, the memory of her with the leather strap between her teeth rose to the forefront of his mind.  Her trying to choke back a scream as his power forced her rib back into place.  Fenris above her, pressing her into the mattress, trying to keep his hold on her arms without hurting her further.  Varric slowly turning green in a corner. 

It was also at the forefront of her mind, that much was plain, but a corner of her lips still quirked upward in a semblance of a grin to spite her serious eyes.  Gently she rested her palm on his shoulder, and instinctively he closed his hands around her forearm, working magic into muscle that had been torn. 

She was silent for a moment, enjoying the warmth and tingle of the touch.  “I just wanted to say thank you for everything you do for me.  That you do for all of us.”  He stopped, watching her as she spoke, not really trusting himself to respond.  “I know it’s hard to get along, sometimes.  I just wanted to make sure to tell you that I appreciate your company for more than just the magic and the healing you can do.  To make sure to say it plainly to you, so that you’d know it was true.” 

She treated him then to one of those blazing Hawke smiles, so bright he thought it surely must be sun-burning his insides.  _This is why we all love her,_ he thought, just wanting to absorb it while it lasted.  _This_ _is why we follow her._

_And want her.  And protect her._

He almost said as much, nearly blurting it out when her hand on his shoulder tightened, giving it a little squeeze.  He’d remained silent even when she said her peace; rather than make him uncomfortable with any more great outpourings of sentiment, she’d get back to all the things she should be doing and let him do so as well. 

“You’re a very good friend, Anders.  Now help me put my pants back on.”

He could laugh then, her flash of easy humor something he could respond to, use to drown out the other, more forbidden thoughts.  “What are very good friends for?”

**

Fenris found her in the same empty courtyard, pacing around in circles to ease the stiffness in her muscles.  Her recovery was remarkable, the bruises on her face all but faded into nothing, and if her gait was less smooth than usual she did not limp or falter. 

It made it the idea of the apostate’s hands on her slightly more bearable.  But only slightly.

He fell into step beside her, walking silently for a time. “I will kill him for you if you wish.”

Her mouth quirked into an almost-smile.  “You can’t just go around murdering everyone who wants to kill me.  Not for free, anyway.  What would we do for work?”

Fenris ignored her attempt at levity, his face impassive.  “He called you a whore.”

“He did, didn’t he.  That wasn’t very nice of him.”  She lifted one shoulder slightly, her hand moving to her ribs, the touch brief only.  “Sticks and stones.”

She sighed when his features went from expressionless to frowning.  “The truth is, I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been there.  I’m glad we didn’t have to find out.  You probably saved my life.”  Her eyes were like her voice, soft and sincere. 

Could one just say _you’re welcome_? Fenris didn’t know, but as he turned the words over in his head they seemed lacking, far too shallow a vessel.  “I told you not to accept the job.”

“That you did.  Sorry about that.” 

**

If even Gamlen had knowledge of her involvement in the Arena, word had to travel quickly.

“Stupid girl,” he jeered at her, his face twisting into a sneer.  “You’re going to get killed and break your mother’s heart.”

Only his more-than-passing resemblance to Carver (and the fact that her tirade against him only moments before had included more insults than the word ‘stupid’) kept her from giving him a kick in the ass, right where he deserved one.  That and he had a point about her mother.

“At least I bring coin home, rather than spending it all on boozing and whores.”

Gamlen glared, crossing his arms over his chest, his regular presence at the Blooming Rose something that Hawke and Bethany jibbed him over regularly, while still forbearing to keep his secret from their mother.  “Then I guess you won’t mind if I bet against you.  Easy money to be made that way, so I’m told.”

Hawke shot him a humorless smile, crossing her arms as well to mirror his stance.  “Please do.  Varric would love to part you from your coins.”

He saw himself out, muttering the entire time. 

“You gonna pay off his tab?  Being your uncle and all.”  Corff was drying ‘clean’ mugs behind the bar with a rag that looked about as filthy as the floor.

Hawke’s mouth twisted, and after a moment she sighed and shrugged her shoulders in resignation.  “Yeah, sure.”


	9. Chapter 9

Fenris had an impressive ability to hover, standing over her shoulder like a lithe tower of black metal and well polished steel.  Hawke had decided it was better not to question it even as he’d turned up at the Hanged Man to escort her to the Arena, and had stood stock still at her side ever since.

 _Fenris, Fenris, Fenris…_   Normally she would have gently guided his attention elsewhere, to Merrill or Bethany, or even an extremely drunken Isabela, but her encounter with Garner had her on edge.

“It shouldn’t take something like that to make you careful,” Aveline had said, all bare bones in her honesty.  Surprisingly, for once, Hawke agreed.

They had both served at Ostagar in their own varying capacities, Aveline as an officer in King Cailan’s army, Hawke as a member of Lothering’s militia.  While female soldiers were not so uncommon in Ferelden as elsewhere, being a woman among so many men presented dangers - even if you didn’t consider the potential repercussions of being captured by the enemy.  You learned not to be careless, and at least once in your life you considered slitting your own throat rather than surrender.  They had both been lucky, but that was a poor excuse.

The stands of the Arena were filled to bursting, standing room only aside from their party whom Fenris had found seats, likely on threat of pain.  Hawke had kicked her feet up on the table, slouching in her chair as though in the familiar comfort of the Hanged Man, absently rubbing the muscles of her forearm where there was still a small, lingering pain.  She did little more than watch for Garner, playing small fantasies through her mind largely centered around his painful demise to keep her from feeling overly insecure.

Their bid to discover how he and Mendel were cheating had turned up largely empty.  Varric was fairly certain that the other contestants were not throwing the matches on purpose, and no one he spoke to could remember ever seeing the apostate use magic in public.  Isabela and Merrill had even broken into Garner’s house to search for anything with a blood magic residue.  They’d come up empty.  So it was something subtle then, which meant, unfortunately, something entirely missable.

Ale flowed freely in the house tonight, and those who came to watch the fighting imbibed deeply.  There had already been a fist fight or two in the stands, lending the place an ugly, explosive feel.  The crowd was ready for violence, waiting to see someone get ripped apart on the already bloody Arena floor.

Which would be her, most likely.  Varric told her that the odds for betting on her were excellent, provided she actually won.  The way he’d said it was amusing, but neither of them laughed.

“Ah, my lady Hawke.”

Her reverie snapped, her gaze travelling upward to see the stringy haired mage standing over her.  Behind her Fenris gave a low rumble of disapproval, the sound nearly lost in the loud voices.

“Mendel.  So nice of you to stop by.”

“You’re looking well.”  His eyes hovered pointedly on the remnants of bruising on her face.  She had told Anders to leave it and save his magic for something else, almost certain she would be in need of it later.

There was a nasty glimpse of something in his eye that grated on her nerves like sandpaper, drawing her sharp.  “It pays to have friends with power.”

The man stiffened at her double meaning, his jaw work furiously back and forth, making his weak chin waggle.  “I just thought I would wish you luck.  You’re going to need it.”

She watched him shuffle off into the crowd, soon disappearing into the throng of tightly pressed bodies.  Above and behind her, Fenris was snarling out something complex in Arcanum for which Hawke needed no translation;  if it were up to him, there would be one very dead fighter and one very dead mage, pulled inside out and tied together in a bow.

**

The crowd screamed its approval as an unconscious body was hurled into the stands, coming to crash down somewhere in the first tier.

Garner was in the ring, his granite muscles and unattractive smile shown off to full potential as he faced off against two other men in a fight that seemed curiously scripted, aside from the very real damage he was doing to his opponents.  Apart from the man who had been thrown into the stands, there was another who lay absolutely still on the ground, his head canted at an unnatural angle.

The remaining fighters worked in tandem, raining blows against Garner’s massive torso.  He cracked their heads together like walnuts.

Roaring, both bloody fists pumped into the air, Garner paced the circumference of the ring, strutting as the crowd chanted his name.

“He doesn’t seem to be hurting at all…”

“I know, and I thought that one fellow had him too, on the ground and everything.”

Both Anders’ and Varric’s eyes followed the too-still man with the neck bent at an impossible angle as he was dragged out of the ring, leaving a smear of blood in his wake.

Varric turned toward her, hearing her sigh.  The dwarf was sorry that he’d gotten her into this; he didn’t have to say it, it was written all over his face.  “It’s not too late to back out, Hawke, if you don’t want to go through with this.”

Her mouth twisted wryly.  “Now you tell me.”

In all honesty, the thought had crossed her mind.  It had been her cocky Amell stubbornness that had landed them in this mess, and while she was no coward, bleeding out on a bed of dirty sawdust while a malevolent giant crushed her lungs with his foot did not stand to gain them anything but two less daggers to fight thugs and slavers with.

Despite the showy performances of a not-so-distant past, nobody was having fun tonight.  Not even the incorrigible Isabela who had begun drinking four hours earlier in preparation, and who now had her head on the table, appearing for all intents and purposes to be trying not to get sick.

Hawke had been about to bend to Varric’s warning, Anders’ stricken gaze and Fenris’ articulate glower when Mendel pushed his way back through the crowd, flanked on all sides by burly men whose hands all hovered near the hilts of their weapons with less than subtle intent.

The smile on the man’s face was nasty, his purpose clear.  “They tell me it’s time.  Garner doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

From the corner of her eye she could see Varric surreptitiously reaching for Bianca under the table.  Even Sebastian’s hand had come to hover on the hilt of his hunting knife, though Maker knew he had only passable skill with it, preferring to rely on the ranged power of his bow.

When Fenris stepped forward menacingly to draw close to her side, Hawke held up a hand to stop him.  They could not risk a full-fledged fight in here, not with so many people packing the stands.  Even if they could best Mendel’s men, there were plenty of other dangers here, the risk of being trampled in a stampede of fleeing bodies not the least.  And they were too exposed – even if the mages were able and willing, she would not risk losing Bethany to someone’s loose lips wagging to the templars.

Slowly, she stood up.

“No.”

“Hawke, you don’t have to do this-”

Fenris, with Anders chiming in right behind him.  An inconvenient time for a truce, if there ever was one.

Hawke silenced them with a shake of her head.  Deliberately she looked at each of them, forcing the muscles of her face to form an expression more confident than she truly felt.  She was unsure of what it looked like, only sensing that there was some sort of smiling involved.  Reaching out to brush her hand against Bethany’s cheek as she passed, she tried to ignore the way her younger sister’s lower lip trembled.  “Everything will be fine.”

“Maker, I hate when she says things like that.”

The sound of Sebastian reciting the Chant in his deliberate brogue followed her as Mendel’s men led her through the crowd.

_Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter…_


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning again for a few lines of potentially triggering dialogue.

_Here goes nothing._

Her feet crunched on the sawdust, made tacky in parts by the spilled blood of previous battles.  Garner was waiting for her, stalking like a predator around the perimeter of the ring, posturing for the crowd.  The Arena looked so much smaller today with him in it. 

When he saw her enter the ring, Garner threw back his head and laughed, coming to circle around her like a shark with the scent of blood.  “Hello, little whore.”

“I am going to enjoy this.”

_Also unfortunate._

“Same old tired pick-up lines, Garner?” Hawke’s hands bunched to fists at her sides, her voice whip-cracking out of her with surprising force.  “They’re a little limp.”

He circled around behind her, hissing.  “Such a pretty mouth for such a stupid slut.  I look forward to teaching you what to do with it.”

 _his is the part where he snaps me in half and has his way with my corpse, right before Fenris rips out his heart and feeds it to him._ Which would be a comfort, except for the part about her being dead, and therefore unable to fully enjoy it.

He reached out, fingered a lock of her hair.  “I can be a good teacher. 

It was all she could do not to flinch away from him.  Unbidden, something Anders had said weeks ago floated into her mind; w _hen in doubt, flail wildly._   Without meaning to, she laughed.  Garner snarled something under his breath and stalked angrily to the other side of the Arena.

_Here lies one Marian Hawke, reduced to a small red stain on the floor because she didn’t know when to shut her stupid mouth._

Somewhere to her left, Grayzor was addressing the crowd, and all too soon the bell rang.

**

This was punishment, pure and simple. 

Fenris hadn’t been far off in his estimation – Garner was definitely trying to kill her.  Every blow that whistled by her head or glanced searingly near her torso was meant to cripple her.  He hadn’t managed to land a blow on her – yet.  Much of that she attributed to the sadistic way he was trying to play with her, backing her up into corners and forcing her to perform some wild move to evade him.

Her hair was in her eyes, and she could feel sweat trickling down the back of her neck.  She, on the other hand, had not been so unsuccessful in her attempts to strike him, landing almost every single blow successfully on the overlarge target of his torso.  Its effect was less than desired, serving mostly to wear her down and make him laugh.  He didn’t even have the decency to bleed when one of her fists caught him square in the mouth.

She couldn’t keep this up forever.  Something was definitely wrong here – Hawke was no mage, but even she could sense it.  He was covered in blood but as far as she could estimate, not a single drop of it was his.  Given some of the punishment he’d taken – or allowed himself to take – so far tonight, that wasn’t natural.  She had to think fast and figure out how he was doing it.

Garner swung and missed, part of the arena wall exploding into splinters under his fist as she ducked out of the way, darting to the other side of the arena to crouch and catch her breath.  His footsteps were heavy enough to make the sawdust jump as he stepped toward her, closing some of the distance.  “Ready to give up, little whore?”  He grinned maliciously, one hand moving to rest on his belt buckle.  “I can go _all_ night.”

 _Crude bastard._   She spit in response and he laughed his ugly, chortling laugh again, turning his back on her intentionally to pander once more to the crowd.

That was when she saw it – the little twisted looking charm that hung from the buckle of his belt, its center gleaming a dull red color.  It looked oddly familiar, like something she’d once taken off a corpse.  That had to be it.  _It better be,_ she threatened her instincts, _since you’re going to have to dive practically into his crotch to get it._

The Maker, sometimes, had a terrible sense of humor.

**

In the stands above, Fenris locked eyes with Hawke has her head swung toward him, finding the little ring of her companions in the crowd.  She nodded once, almost imperceptibly, and looked away.

He couldn’t help the slow, feral grin that spread over his features.  “She knows how he’s doing it.”

Varric breathed out a sigh of relief so long it sounded like it was coming up from his toes.  “Thank the Maker for small mercies.”

**

In for a silver, in for a sovereign. 

Garner pumped his fists in the air and roared to the crowd, who screamed back at him.  Where she crouched, Hawke braced herself for a sprint.

The impact was dizzying, the full force of her entire body at top speed crashing into the Arena champion when he turned around to face her.  The sheer hard muscle of him bruised her shoulder, but the boggled expression on his face was so worth it.

They staggered and spun together at the impact, almost toppling before he caught his balance, plucking her off of him as though she weighed no more than a child and bodily throwing her into the wall of the arena. 

But not before she made a mad grab for the amulet.

It came away in her hand, sharp metal edges biting into her palm as the cord snapped.  It flared power into her grasp, pulsing like a beating heart, sluggish and sickening.  It left little doubt that this was more than just some ordinary trinket.  Hawke had only barely congratulated herself when she slammed against the wooden planks, her back taking the brunt of the force by sheer luck only, her head coming perilously close to being split open on the sharp corners of the boards.

He stepped away from her, believing her to be stunned.  His whole persona was choked with hubris, seemingly unable to make even a single move without urging the crowd to cheer him on.  She took advantage of the reprieve, forcing herself back to her feet.

“Hey, ugly.  Look at what I got.” 

Hawke held the amulet up for him to see, and then threw it to the ground, stomping on it with the heel of her boot.  The glass cracked and something foul looking seeped out of it, hissing for a moment and beginning to eat its way through the floor.  Thank the Maker it hadn’t shattered in her hand.

The look on his face was priceless as his nose started to bleed, the expression one of a man who thought himself invincible, only to be reminded of the true nature of pain. 

“What, you’re afraid of me now?”  Blood was leaking down his chin too, from a rent at the corner of his mouth that she knew she had put there.  She was circling him now, making him spin in place to keep sight of her as bruises spontaneously blossomed across his torso.  “Can’t best a whore like me without the help of a little blood magic?”

The crowd was restless and confused, babbling to itself, trying to figure out why the mood had changed.  Why suddenly Hawke had gone on the offensive, driving the current Arena champion across the floor.  The masses were fickle, the words _cheating_ and _blood magic_ rippling through like waves. 

When Garner finally gave into her litany of increasingly colorful and creative insults and charged her, there was no band of fear that tightened across her stomach.  He no longer seemed huge and threatening, seeming to shrink in on himself until he was just a man, no more terrifying than any other. 

Hawke’s right fist shot out with the force of arm, shoulder and body behind it, and prematurely ended his wild charge, staggering him back a step.  He swung at her and she ducked his arm, coming up and around with a blow to his side.  They locked arms at each other’s shoulders, pushing and spinning each other across the arena floor until Hawke found her opening, jamming a hard knee up into his stomach.  She shoved him backward, and the kick that landed with full force between his legs was just for spite.  The fight was over, but she wanted to see him on the ground.  He sagged but didn’t fall, and she pivoted on one leg and spun, graceful as a dancer, her boot connected with his cheek with a final snap that knocked teeth from his ruined mouth and sent him spiraling face down into the dust.

That was when the earth began to shake, grit and pieces of unconsolidated debris raining down from the ceiling as the ground split open beneath her feet.


	11. Chapter 11

_“Really?”_

“I swear on blessed Andraste’s hairbrush friend, that’s exactly what happened.”

“But-”

“Varric.”  Hawke sounded disapproving, but her eyes were laughing.  They sat in the Hanged Man, nursing mugs of ale and deep in conversation with Bartolemo Rendoza, famed bard and (according to the stories) Antivan lover extraordinaire.  His fame was legitimate, even if the stories came from Isabela.  Which, given the source, might actually be legitimate too.  “You make it sound like I challenged a pride demon to single combat.”

“Isn’t that sort of what happened?”

She considered.  “ _Sort_ of.  I just let it chase me around the Arena for a while.  What else was I supposed to do!”  Hawke flushed under Bartolemo’s incredulous look and Varric’s smug one.  “I couldn’t just let it stomp me.  And besides,” she took a long swallow of her beer, her words and the set of her mouth turning just a touch defensive.  “There were people.”

“And the loose plank with a rusty nail in it?”

“That part I did do.  What?!  I didn’t have any weapons!”

Beside her, Bartolemo’s head was shaking slowly back and forth.  “You are a singular woman, Mistress Hawke.  A singular woman indeed.”

Varric was trying not to laugh, his smug expression unsuccessfully smothered.  Hawke rolled her eyes and sighed in defeat, recognizing an artist inspired when she saw one. 

 _A singular woman._ If that ended up the title of his next ‘historical’ ballad, it would be just her luck.

**

Garner picked his way through the rubble of Darktown, a note crumpled in his hand.  His fortunes had changed since facing off against the mercenary woman Hawke, his body much damaged and missing the feeling of power and invulnerability that Mendel’s charm had given him.  They were calling her Champion now, after the Arena title she had firmly wrested from him.  Conniving bitch.

He came to the end of the alleyway and stopped, finding himself at the door to the free clinic run by that apostate Andric, Andrew, whatever his name was.  He didn’t like the man and had been holding a grudge ever since the healer had banished him from the building on sight weeks ago even though he’d come carrying perfectly good coin, preferring to waste his magics on Ferelden nobodies with nothing to their names but dirt and lice.  Rejection was a bitter taste Garner had not yet grown accustomed to, though he was faced with it often now that his name was tarnished with the stink of blood magic.

Still, a job was a job, and if the only way he could entice women to lay with him was with coin now, he’d be needing more of it.  He stepped inside.  “I was told to- ”

The blond apostate looked up and actually smiled, the expression more than a little unsettling.  “Ah, Garner.  We’ve been expecting you.”

Behind him, the door slid shut with a quiet click and a snarl, and the room blossomed lyrium blue.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for making it all the way through this guys! There may be more old/half-finished works in the pipeline, and feel free to follow me on tumblr at http://codenamecynic.tumblr.com/ Thanks again!


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